If you were to compare the services that the banks and financial institutions provided say over 15–20 years ago with the present day offerings, you will be amazed at the changing landscape in the financial services environment.

There is a sea change even in the way banks engage with customers. Thanks to technology intervention, banks are today striving to innovate and simplify complex problems in such rapid pace to ensure customer loyalty.

Service providers and system integrators play a crucial role in helping banks cater to customer needs and demands.

Dimension Data, for instance, provides end to end capabilities for organisations in the BFSI vertical.

In a telephonic conversation with the Business Line, K N Murali, Head (Solutions), Dimension Data, India said that customer retention/loyalty is becoming a big challenge for banks. “Brand loyalty has become very fragile. In order to maintain customer stickiness, banks will need to constantly strive to innovate and differentiate themselves. While technology adoption has become the in-thing, banks do it at varied speed,” he said.

“Technology has a constant forward momentum. By the time a bank implements a certain technology, chances are that it may need an upgrade. It is therefore imperative for banks to ensure that they stay ahead of the curve and provide the best in class service,” he said.

“Autonomics and security solutions are two big areas that we focus on for rendering service,” he added.

Throwing light on some of the innovative services that the company provides for various public and private sector banks, he said that banks are considering using Remote Experts. “It is an integrated revenue-enablement platform that lets retail banking customers connect with banking experts anywhere in the organisation, using any channel and endpoint as per customer preference. This would be a video-enabled interactive platform, which is still nascent in India.

“Over time, the Remote Expert would be available on the mobile too. We are in talks with large banks to make this a reality,” Murali said.

“There has been a dramatic increase in conversations via chatbots. This is helping customers make smart decisions,” he said.

“Technology has become a core tool for banks. While it is important, banks have also realised that it is a key differentiator,” he added.

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